


Where We Used To Stand

by lightsaberss



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: F/M, Post-Promised Day
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 23:06:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20366599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightsaberss/pseuds/lightsaberss
Summary: The Promised Day is over and Team Mustang, and the Elric's have to move forward with their lives, their plans, and their recoveries.





	Where We Used To Stand

"Colonel Mustang and Lieutenant Hawkeye? Put them in room 7A, I'll send someone to do the paperwork." The nurse said hurriedly, after she checked that neither of them were currently bleeding from any of their injuries. Riza had been patched up in a tent near the battle site, Dr Knox had stitched her neck back together, and ordered her to rest before he'd moved onto the next patient. There had been a lot of patients. Then there was The Colonel, suddenly blind, beaten, bruised, but otherwise unhurt.

They'd been one of the last combatants to be sent to the hospital. Their situation either too strange (in his case) or potentially life threatening (in hers), to be ignored. There were many worse off than them, many dead, many seriously injured, and there had been Alphonse, his new body starved and weak. They had both been content to wait.

They sat together in silence, glad to be alive, exhausted by the battle, and they'd waited until it was their turn to leave.

The hospital room was small, but private, something that Riza was sure was a product of the Colonel's rank, rather than luck. It was just another small thing that would have to be unpicked when they achieved their goal and dismantled the military dictatorship, tiny in comparison to everything else they would have to do.

There were hospital scrubs left on the beds for them, oversized to the point where Riza thought they might've comfortably fit Major Armstrong, but they were clean. They weren't bloodstained and stinking of sweat and smoke. Riza could've cried with happiness at the sight of them. 

"Need a hand, Colonel?" She asked. "There's clean clothes and a bed. Sleep wouldn't be such a bad idea right now."

"This is not how I imagined you offering to undress me, Lieutenant." 

"I'm rolling my eyes at you, sir." She shot back. "If you'd prefer, I could try and find you a <i>male</i> nurse to help."

"You're a very cruel woman, do you know that?" 

"It's been mentioned once or twice." Riza smiled, It was good to hear him joke, to hear his voice, to be reminded that they'd survived it all. "Not just by you."

"No?" He asked, and offered her his hand so that she could guide him to the bed. "Who else has been calling my subordinate cruel?"

"You're getting possessive again, sir." She led him across the small room, to the bed by the window and pushed him gently until he sat down so that she could kneel to unlace his boots. 

"I can't help it. Ever since Bradley took you from me, I've felt the need to call you mine." 

"Boots off." She instructed, glad that the Colonel couldn't see the faint blush across her cheeks. 

"Do you realise this is the first time we've been alone since he took you from me?" Roy asked. "-Wait, we are alone, aren't we?"

"Yes, sir. No one here but us." 

"Good." Mustang said, and he toed his boots off, followed by his socks. His shoulders sagged slightly, he looked exhausted, in the same way that Riza could feel in her blood and bones. It wasn't just the battle that had left them both worn thin, the months since Hughes' death had weighed on both of them, every set back, and failure, left them a little more worn.

Now it was over. 

Now they could move forward. Somehow.

"Marcoh said he could fix my eyes." He said.

Riza's hands, which were about to help remove his uniform jacket, stopped deadly still. "Sir, you really should lead with something like that." She chided, gently. "How? A Philosopher's stone?"

"He has one. He asked me to reverse the policy on Ishval, to open the borders, let the Ishvalan people return home." Mustang explained. "I agreed, but asked him to see to Havoc first. It's going to be a dark few weeks for me."

"I'll make sure you don't come to any harm, sir." 

They'd talked about Ishval. Not just about what they'd done, but about what they would do once he'd achieved his goal. All their plans had been hypothetical, and full of more questions than answers. Would Ishvalan's return if invited by the Flame Alchemist and the Hawk's Eye? Would the people of Amestris accept their attempts to rebuild after being fed years of propaganda and hatred? Would they even get a chance to do the smallest sliver of good there, or would they be tried for war crimes first?

It hadn't mattered at the time, because they were years away from getting to where they could make a difference. Now, with Bradley gone, and her grandfather - of all the General's left, it had to be him - in charge, there was a chance.

"Where will we even start?" 

"We?" He tilted his head up to look at her, and opened his eyes. They weren't brown and familiar, but milky white and unseeing, and yet Riza could still read every emotion and unasked question in them. 

Did she want to return to Ishval? No, and he would never make her. If she chose to remain behind, then he wouldn't force her to move forwards with him. If anyone else had asked her, she wouldn't hesitate to remain where she was, stagnant but safe from the memories and horrors they'd committed. But it was him, and she would follow him anywhere, even back to Ishval. She hadn't lied when she'd told him she'd follow into hell.

"Sir, you wouldn't last five minutes without me," Riza said. "And I promised to watch your back, remember?"

"This isn't going to be easy, Lieutenant. If you wanted to follow someone else, like your-."

"What have we done recently that could be defined as 'easy'?" She countered, annoyed. She'd only been gone from his side for a few months, he wasn't going to get rid of her like this. Not today. "Considering we just successfully pulled off a coup, came out of it without getting arrested, and just helped fight a homunculus that tried to become God." 

"So you're with me on this?" 

Riza rested both her hands on his shoulders. His military jacket was coarse under her fingertips, and she could feel the stars of his rank insignia on her palms, but she could also feel his warmth through it, a reassurance that he was there and so was she. 

"Into hell were my words, I recall." She said. "So, sir, where do we start?"

"We need to convince Grumman, and get all the information on Ishval and her people as we can." He said, and raised an elegant hand to stifle a yawn. "And maybe some sleep."

"I'll make an appointment with General Grumman in the morning, and I'll call Breda and ask him to gather some intel for us." 

"Good. Thank you, Lieutenant." 

There was silence as she helped him undress, he closed his eyes and she guided his hands to the buttons on his jacket, and then on his shirt. Years of alchemy and fighting had left their mark on his hands, the faint scar of the flame's transmutation circle, the calluses on his fingers, the burn scars from when he first tried to control the flames her father had discovered were still there if you knew where to look, and Riza knew, she'd been there with him when he'd done it, and she'd helped him dress the wounds. She'd been there when he tried again the next day, and she'd been there when he'd finally mastered it. 

There was blood on his hands too, hers from the battle where her neck had been slit and she'd almost died, and the blood of everyone they'd killed.

Riza helped him into his scrubs, not by dressing him herself, but by guiding him without words, just gentle touches. 

"You should get some rest, Hawkeye. You're still injured." He ordered, gently, his voice barely louder than a whisper. 

"Yes sir." She would have nodded, if he'd been able to see her. 

Sleep that night came easy for once, exhaustion beat away the demons that would often plague her nights and keep her awake and staring at the ceiling for hours. Tonight it was instant, and deep, and dreamless.


End file.
